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28 February 2013

Road Testing the Photosynth Panorama App

Microsoft's Photosynth Panorama App is
a mobile phone app that lets you capture 360 degree panoramic photos.
These can be viewed as swipable panoramas on your iPhone, iPad or
Windows Phone, shared online or exported as simple jpgs.

The key advantages of using the
Photosynth Panorama App are its ease of use, the fact that it costs
nothing to download or use and and the impressive range of ways you
can use and share your panoramic scenes.

The app works with the camera in your
mobile phone or iPad, showing your progress as you shoot multiple
views from a single vantage point and helpfully suggesting which
views to add to the panorama. The software then stitches the multiple
views into a single panoramic scene. You can geotag your location as
you shoot and there is an option to save all the individual photos as
well.

After shooting your scene, the app
prompts you to upload your panorama, (or “pano” as the app
developers call them) to Photosynth.net. From there the panos can be
viewed online, publicised through social networks such as Twitter and
Facebook or embedded your own webpage. Studio 425 recently added a
Photosynth pano to the Flying Cloud Cafe's website to show off the cafe's stunning riverside location in Teddington.
This free panoramic scene was created without the need for any costly
software such as Photoshop or specialist equipment more advance than
an iPhone 4s. Geotagged panos are can also be embedded in Microsoft's
Bing Maps.

Naturally there are some disadvantages
to using a camera-phone to create panoramas. Image resolution is
limited and most camera phones struggle with low light levels or very
contrasting light levels. For instance, our night time view of
London's riverside, below, struggles to maintain focus in low light
without a tripod. Likewise, our panoramic view of the Barbican Centre
Sculpture Court (top) struggles to cope with changing exposure needed for
360 views looking both towards and away from direct sunlight.

Another small gripe is that you cannot
fully control the centre of static 2D views when exporting a jpg from
your mobile. This, however, is a minor point as the app preserves the
original composite photos, which you could “photomerge” using
Adobe Photoshop if you what to have more control over the exact
stitching process.

So, while we at Studio 425 are
definitely sold on Photosynth Panorama as a handy mobile app for
capturing and sharing free panoramic photographs, there is one last
point the make. The “pano” part of Photosynth is actually the tip
of the iceberg, in terms of what Photosynth software can do. The full
Photosynth process uses photos from multiple viewpoints to create
navigable 3D environments based on point cloud modelling. At the time
of writing, this was only possible via desktop software. However it
seems that a mobile app that effectively turns a typical camera-phone
into a mobile 3D scanner is the next logical step. Watch this space!